Let’s set the cops on barbaric fox-hunters

Among those deeply disappointed with the Conservative party’s victory on 7 May was Britain’s diverse and vibrant community of wild animals. They have not yet daubed anti-Tory slogans on war memorials or marched through city centres screaming that they are not going to take it any more — and still less written vacuous and hyperbolic tirades for the Guardian. But they are deeply worried and consider themselves vulnerable to the assaults from a Conservative government untrammelled by the moderating influence of those sentimentalists the Lib Dems.

And so badgers are stocking up on gas masks and the foxes are doing their callisthenics, so as to outpace some psychopathic fat toff on a wheezing mare, and bulk–buying aniseed spray to befuddle the hounds. Others — such as hen harriers — appear to have given up the ghost altogether and have plumped for extinction as the only viable option. Their fears are entirely justified: the Conservatives have a truly shocking record on conservation.